


Crystal Visions

by waywardangel (leviarty)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Realities, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Finale, Sort Of, but written after 15x13, established relationship (sort of), look its complicated okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviarty/pseuds/waywardangel
Summary: Dean Winchester dreams...
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Crystal Visions

He’s been having these dreams for as long as he could remember. Dreams of monsters, demons, hell. Angels, too, but not the angels that religious folks talk about. In fact, these angels were sometimes indistinguishable from the monsters.

The first nightmare he remembered was of fire. A fire that consumed their home. He woke up crying and kept crying until his mother came into the room to comfort him. And he couldn’t go back to sleep until she let him wander down the hall to check on Sam.

She sat down in the rocker as he peeked into his baby brother’s crib. After a few moments, he climbed into the rocker with her, and fell asleep with his head on her chest.

Even years later, he remembered the smell of it, the ash in the air, baby Sammy in his arms…

But no such fire ever occurred. Mom and Dad still lived in that house.

But he still remembered it like it was real.

Though he would have many such dreams, that one felt by far the most… familiar. As he got older, that was the dream that would haunt him.

When he was seven years old, he broke his arm.

At least, he _thought_ he broke his arm.

He couldn’t remember it exactly. He was on a playground, maybe? He fell.

He remembered the pain. It hurt so much.

And then suddenly it didn’t. The pain was gone, and the purple and blue bruise had vanished just as quickly as it started to form.

Dean looked up, his eyes still watering from the pain that had ceased, to see a boy, not much older than himself, standing over him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I—” the child seemed confused by the question. “My name is Jimmy,” he said.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Dean said. “You wanna come play with me?”

Again, the boy seemed awfully confused for such a simple question, but nodded, and followed after Dean as he ran around the playground.

When he returned home and told the story to his parents, they merely rolled their eyes and commended his very active imagination, seemingly unconcerned about his arm.

It _felt_ real, but that too must have been a dream.

When Dean was nine, Sammy almost died. A monster tried to drain his lifeforce…

Except, Sam didn’t almost die. He was perfectly fine, asleep in his bed.

It was just a dream.

He didn’t tell his parents about the dreams—they were just dreams, right?

But as he got older, the dreams started to feel more real, harder to distinguish from reality.

He could distinguish it though. Though they did, at times, feel impossibly real, there were too many important differences that he couldn’t ignore.

His mom was never in the dreams. In the world that existed only in his nightmares, his mother had died in a fire. In the real world, she was a flight attendant, and then, more recently, a sales consultant for her parents’ firm… whatever the hell that meant.

And Dad… well, his dad in the nightmare world was… a nightmare. Angry and judgmental, more of a drill instructor than a father. The opposite of who he was here. And in there, he killed monsters instead of fixing cars.

Sam—actually, Sammy was pretty much the same. His goofy, genius kid brother.

When he got accepted to Stanford, the whole family helps pack him up and they drive him off to California, leaving him with hugs and tears and promises that they’ll visit one another soon.

And that night, Dean dreamed the same thing, except it was twisted and warped. No mom. Sam and Dad fighting. Sam leaving on his own. And Dad pissed at _Dean_ for letting it happen.

He knew the difference. The dreams, though they had a bizarre sense of truth and continuity, were a monstrous hellscape. Reality wasn’t always easy, but by comparison, was utterly peaceful.

But still, sometimes the dreams left him with feelings he couldn’t quite shake. Though he had friends and plenty to do at the shop, and talked to Sam every few days, the feeling of loneliness seeped over from his dreams. And though he had a caring and emotionally available father, sometimes he feared that it would all flip.

“So, are you seeing anyone?” Mary asked at their weekly dinner.

Dean rolled his eyes.

“What, I can’t be curious? Sam was telling us about the nice girl he met, Jen? Jess?”

Dean was suddenly overcome with a sense of dread that he couldn’t quite place. Mary continued talking, but he could hardly hear her over the blood pumping in his ears.

“You alright, son?” John asked.

“Yeah, fine,” Dean said, shaking it off. “Sorry.”

“Anyway,” Mary continued. “Your father and I realized you never talk about the girls you’re dating.”

“Or guys,” John interjected, surprising him. “No judgement.”

Dean shrugged. “I guess I just haven’t found anyone that seems significant.” He dated around some; even had a few girls he’d been ‘steady’ with for a few months. But none of it ever felt worth mentioning. None of it felt permanent.

Several months later, he dreamed that Jess, a girl he’d never actually met, died in a fire. Just like the fire Mom died in… didn’t die in. Whatever.

He must’ve been going crazy.

No, not going. Gone. This had been going on for _years_. As long as he could remember.

For four months straight, the dreams got so bad that he woke gasping for air. Some nights he couldn’t sleep at all, and even after the terrible dream of demons and torture finally stopped, he couldn’t wash the taste of blood from his mouth for weeks to come.

The first time he dreamed of angels, he knew he should’ve been afraid. The arrival was made to intimidate him.

Instead it comforted him.

The dreams kept happening. Angels, demons, monsters. People he’d never met but who felt like family. Death.

Sometimes his own death. Sometimes Sammy’s.

And then there was the angel who kept coming back, not as an enemy, but as a friend, an ally.

He went to Stull Cemetery, the place where, in his dreams, the final showdown between Lucifer and Michael had been stopped.

How strange was it, that his dreams had brought him all over the country, places he’d never been in the real world, but this one happened a stone’s throw from home?

But it was just a graveyard. There was nothing special or apocalyptic or _anything_ about this place.

Except in the way it made him feel.

His phone rang, jarring him out of the false memories.

“Hey, Sammy,” he answered.

“ _You’re gonna be there for dinner, right?_ ”

Dean rolled his eyes. “For the 4th time, yes. I went out for a drive, but I’ll probably be at the house before you are.”

“ _Good. I don’t think I can handle it without a buffer. Mom’s gonna shit a brick about Jess not being there and why we couldn’t work things out and…_ ”

“I get it,” Dean said. “She’s still on my ass about grandkids.” He didn’t ask about Jess. They’d been on-again-off-again for years, and while part of him thought maybe this breakup was just as temporary as the last, part of him also believed that maybe this time it was final.

He was also still haunted by the fact that he had known exactly what she looked like, not to mention dreamt her death, before he’d ever met her.

“ _Yeah, don’t even get me started_ ,” Sam said, and Dean could practically hear his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

“Hey, at least you’ve got a couple degrees under your belt, and healthy job prospects. All I’ve got is a nice car.”

“ _You’ve got a good job that you like, and pays well,”_ Sam corrected. That much was true, even if only because he was the owner’s son. “ _Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ve got good opportunities, but… I don’t know, man. Sometimes it just doesn’t feel right._ ”

Dean hummed. He felt that in his bones. Though he knew this life was real, and it was far better than the shitstorm in his dreams, sometimes that world felt more _right_ that this one.

“ _I should get back on the road_ ,” Sam said a few moments later. “ _See you in a few hours_.”

“See you,” Dean said. He hung up and returned the phone to his pocket, returning his attention to the graveyard.

Speaking of things that both did and didn’t feel real.

This place, a meaningless cemetery. It meant nothing to him.

And yet.

It was the place where Sammy had died to stop Lucifer. Where Bobby and Cas had died in the fight.

Two people he’d never met, people who probably weren’t even real. And yet he felt so strongly for them.

He closed his eyes, letting the dream fill him, wondering what came next.

“Castiel,” he said aloud, almost in prayer. Maybe it was a prayer. He let out a sound not unlike a laugh. “I don’t even know if you’re real. But if you are real… I need to know _something_. What the hell is happening? What’s wrong with me?”

He wasn’t sure what he expected. Not an answer, surely. Because none of it was real. It was just a dream. And his presence here meant only one thing: he was just a man rapidly losing his grasp on reality.

And then…

Behind him, there was a rustling sound. A sound unlike anything he’d ever heard before, and yet, he felt like he’d heard it a thousand times before.

He turned.

“Castiel?” he asked, the man standing before him both familiar and completely foreign. Instinctually, he reached out to touch him.

The moment his fingertips brushed against the angel’s shoulder, he heard a crack of thunder—only there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Dean felt himself gasping for breath as his mind, his _entire being_ , flooded with images and memories. The angel reached out to him, holding him steady as his entire world shook.

Monsters, death, hell, angels. More monsters, more death. Heaven. Purgatory. More angels, Cain, the Mark, the Darkness. God—Chuck. Lucifer. Mom. Lucifer’s offspring—the fear of what he would be, followed by the love that Dean eventually felt for him. Apocalypse Michael riding shotgun in his brain. Chuck turning on them…

And every moment of calm and chaos in between.

“Cas?” he asked hoarsely, as the flood of memories started to ebb away after what felt like eternity. “What the hell is this? Djinn?”

Cas shook his head. “No. I assure you; this world is completely real.” Dean felt the hand around his arm loosen, no longer needed to keep him standing, but Cas didn’t let go entirely either.

“Then what—Jack. God—"

Cas nodded this time. “The way things went down, there was an opening of sorts. A way to change your past.”

“I’m not sure I would’ve agreed to that,” Dean said. In fact, he was certain he wouldn’t have.

“I know. There was little time for debate, and…” Cas’ hand finally dropped from where it had rested against Dean’s arm. Dean hurried to catch it in his own, holding it tightly.

“And what?”

“You deserved this life. You and Sam both.”

Dean was silent for a moment. “Yeah, we did,” he finally said, his voice small. “But.” His thumb traced over the back of Castiel’s hand. “But I wouldn’t have chosen it.”

“Dean—”

“No. Don’t get me wrong; this life is great. It’s nice. My parents are alive, even my _grandparents_. But there was always something missing, you know?”

“What, monsters? The constant threat of the end of the world?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “ _You_ , you idiot,” he said, pressing a firm kiss to his lips.

“You deserve far better than me,” Cas said, his eyes falling closed.

“You’re easily the best thing that happened to me, in either version of reality,” Dean said.

“Well, that’s bleak,” Cas said. Despite his words, a small smile played at his lips as Dean kissed them again.

“Its really not.” He wrapped his arms around the angel, holding him a littler tighter than necessary. “Tell me how it all went down?”

They sat on a nearby bench as Cas filled him in on the details he’d missed from their last apocalypse. Everything from the moment Cas and Jack had been separated from the brothers, to the eventual ‘reset’ as he called it.

“Why do I remember?” Dean eventually asked.

Cas opened his mouth to answer, but none came. He was completely at a loss on that one. “I don’t know. You shouldn’t. I could probably wipe the memories, but I’m not sure it would last.”

“You know I don’t want that,” Dean said.

“I know.”

“Did you know I was remembering things? That I was having dreams about that reality?”

Cas shook his head. “I’ve watched over you, but I never peeked.”

“My whole life,” Dean clarified. “From the day mom should’ve died, I’ve been dreaming about what happened the first go-around. I had no idea, I thought I was crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” Cas assured him.

“Well I know that _now_.” His brow furrowed in thought. “But you’ve been watching over me. You… when I was a kid, I really did break my arm, didn’t I?” he said, his real memories of both realities suddenly finding conflict. “That wasn’t a dream. And you were there. You healed me.” Cas nodded. “So, Jimmy…”

“Oh, no,” Cas said, looking down at the trench coat and vessel he’d worn for as long as Dean had known him. “Jimmy is home with his family. This body… The few angels who are allowed to walk the earth had vessels specifically made. No more taking human vessels.”

“That’s good. What’s Heaven like these days?”

Cas let out a laugh. “Honestly, I don’t really know. Its locked up tight, for the most part.”

“And they left you down here?” Dean asked, looking like he was ready to fight an entire garrison.

“No,” Cas said. “I chose to be here. To watch after you. You, Sam, Mary. The Novaks. Bobby. Jody. My family.” Dean leaned in, kissing him again. “All the angels and demons were released from the Empty. But we couldn’t just let them restart the apocalypse. Michael—our Michael—at least had no interest in that. He resumed command of the Host, along with Gabriel. They locked everything down. They, and only a small handful of others, are permitted to walk the earth. The rest maintain Heaven and are on a non-invasive re-education regimen.”

“Appreciating God’s Creation (But Not God) 101?”

Cas laughed. “Something like that.”

“And Jack?”

“I’m not aware of his exact whereabouts at this moment. Probably somewhere on earth, but he might be in heaven. He’s doing well.”

“Good.”

“He misses you and Sam. I’m sure he will be pleased to know that he can see you again.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, his heart filling with a mix of emotions. Pride. Love. Guilt. Regret. Though Jack had forgiven him in the end days, Dean hadn’t forgiven himself. That guilt had followed him into a whole other reality. But damn he missed the kid.

Dean’s phone chimed, jarring him from the thousand or so other questions he wanted to ask.

 _I don’t see your car in the driveway_ , Sam’s text read.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit.”

 _Sorry. On my way,_ he typed out quickly. Then he looked to Cas. “Think you’re up to re-meet the family?” he asked. The angel smiled and nodded. Dean smiled back, before typing up a second message to his brother. _You think mom will be sufficiently distracted from you if I bring someone home?_

He and Cas were barely settled into Baby before his phone rings. He rolled his eyes as he accepted the call.

“ _Are you serious?_ ” Sam asked.

“Yeah.” Dean reached over to hold Cas’ hand.

“ _Certified bachelor-for-life Dean Winchester is bringing home a date?_ ”

“Yes, Sammy. That’s what I said.”

“ _Did you pick someone up just to play the distraction game? ‘Cause dude, that would make you the best brother ever, but you didn’t have to.”_

“That’s not what happened,” Dean assured him.

“ _So_ …” he was silent for a long moment. “ _So, is it serious then?”_

Dean looked at Cas again, who squeezed his hand and smiled softly back. “Yeah, it is.”

“ _I can’t wait to meet them_ ,” Sam said.

**Author's Note:**

> So there is/was a second part to this, but I'm not sure it was going how I wanted, so I decided to just leave it here. I may come back to it, but *shrug* I also have a lot of other fic thoughts swimming around.


End file.
